The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4 eBook

(677) This alludes to something said in a character
which Jerningham had assumed, for the amusement of
a society some time before at Marshal Conway’s.-M.B.

(678) Miss More gives the following account of this
extraordinary character:—­“On Friday
I gratified the curiosity of many years, by meeting
at dinner Madame la Chevali`ere D’Eon —
she is extremely entertaining, has universal information,
wit, vivacity, and gaiety. Something too much
of the latter (I have heard) when she has taken a
bottle or two of Burgundy; but this being a very sober
party, she was kept entirely within the limits of decorum.
General Johnson was of the party, and it was ridiculous
to hear her military conversation. Sometimes
it Was, ’Quand j’`etais colonel d’un
tel regiment;’ then again, ’Non, c’Rait
quand j’`etais secr`etaire d’ambassade
du Duc de Nivernois,’ or, ’Quand je n`egociais
la paix de Paris.’ She is, to be sure, a
phenomenon in history; and, as such, a great curiosity.
But one D’Eon is enough, and one slice of her
quite sufficient.” Memoirs, vol. ii. p.
156.-E.

You speak so unperemptorily of your motions, that
I must direct to you at random: the most probable
place where to hit you, I think, will be Goodwood;
and I do address this thither, because I am impatient
to thank you for your tale, which is very pretty and
easy and genteel. It has made me make a reflection,
and that reflection made six lines; which I send you,
not as good, but as expressing my thoughts on your
writing so well in various ways which you never practised
when you was much younger. Here they are:

The Muse most wont to fire a youthful heart,
To gild your setting sun reserved her art;
To crown a life in virtuous labours pass’d,
Bestow’d her numbers and her wit at last;
And, when your strength and eloquence retire,
Your voice in notes harmonious shall expire.

The swan was too common a thought to be directly specified,
and, perhaps, even to be alluded to: no matter,
such a trifle is below criticism.

I am still here, in no uncertainty, God knows, about
poor Lady Dysart (679) of whom there are not the smallest
hopes. She grows weaker every day, and does
actually still go out for the air, and may languish
many days, though most probably will go off in a moment,
As the water rises. She retains her senses perfectly,
and as perfectly her unalterable calmness and patience,
though fully sensible of her situation. At your
return from Goodwood, I shall like to come to you,
if you are unengaged, and ready to receive me.
For the beauties of Park-place, I am too well acquainted
with them, not, like all old persons about their contemporaries,
to think it preserves them long after they are faded;
and am so unwalking, that prospects are more agreeable
to me when framed and glazed, and I look at them through
a window. It is yourselves I want to visit, not
your verdure. Indeed, except a parenthesis of
scarce all August, there has been no temptation to
walk abroad; and the tempter himself would not have
persuaded me, if I could, to have climbed that long-lost
mountain whence he could show one even the Antipodes.
It rained incessantly all June and all July; and
now again we have torrents every day.